Under a DACA amnesty, American taxpayers would be left with a $26 billion bill. About one in five DACA illegal aliens, after an amnesty, would end up on food stamps, while at least one in seven would go on Medicaid. Since DACA’s inception under Obama, more than 2,100 illegal aliens have been kicked off the program after it was revealed that they were either criminals or gang members. JOHN BINDER

California to Take on Trump with Embarrassing Hire of Failed AG Eric Holder

Former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

The California legislature is hiring former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to represent the state in expected fights with the new Trump administration over environmental, immigration, and criminal justice issues.

But based on Holder’s track record, don’t expect to see California racking up legal victories.

Although nobody is questioning the skills of the attorneys at Holder’s firm Covington and Burling, hiring Holder as, essentially, California’s outside counsel seems like an odd choice given that the Justice Department under Holder (and continued under Loretta Lynch) has one of the worst records of any modern presidency before the highest court in the land, the U.S. Supreme Court, losing far more cases than either of the Justice Departments of the prior Bush or Clinton presidencies.

Holder is also the only attorney general in history to be held in contempt by Congress for withholding documents related to Operation Fast and Furious, the most reckless law enforcement operation ever conducted by the Justice Department. That operation has resulted in the death of a U.S. border patrol agent, Brian Terry, as well as many Mexican citizens.

That also reflects poorly on Holder’s legal judgment.

Some may say that California is just preparing to do what other states like Texas have done in successfully suing the federal government during the Obama administration. But those cases are very different than what California is apparently planning to do.

The states have been suing to stop unconstitutional conduct by the executive branch when Barack Obama failed in his duty to “faithfully execute” the law or acted unilaterally in ways that improperly changed the law. The president does not have the authority to change, rewrite, or ignore federal laws he does not like. And federal agencies do not have the power to issue regulations outside the bounds of the statutes authorizing their conduct. Stopping that type of misbehavior is the opposite of states attempting to obstruct enforcement of federal law or force the federal government to act outside its limited power.

For example, 26 states were successful in obtaining an injunction against President Barack Obama’s immigration amnesty plan because no president has the power to alter federal immigration law to provide an amnesty and government benefits that have not been authorized by Congress or to decide that he will wholesale not enforce the law.

But California is going to try to prevent the new administration from enforcing federal immigration law despite the fact that the Constitution clearly gives Congress plenary authority over immigration and imposes a duty on the president (and thus the executive branch) to enforce the law.

Similarly, one of the reasons for California’s economic decline and severe budget shortfall problems is that it has been rated as the worst state in the country to do business in for the past twelve years in an annual survey of CEOs by the Chief Executive Network because of its high taxes and burdensome regulations. As one CEO said in the survey, “California has been running businesses out of the state for years, and in fact, their policies are getting worse.”

Yet the state is hiring Holder to start a crusade against any efforts by the Trump administration to reduce the severe federal regulatory burden that adds to the negative effects on businesses and consumers that California already imposes.

Furthermore, the news that the California legislature is hiring Holder came only a day after Gov. Jerry Brown nominated Rep. Xavier Becerra, a Democrat, to be California’s new state attorney general.

Neither Brown nor Kevin de Leon, the Democratic leader of the state senate who was quoted in a New York Times article praising Holder’s retention, seemed to realize the complete lack of confidence retaining Holder shows in Becerra’s legal ability to carry out his role as attorney general – which is defending the state of California and its interests in environmental, immigration, and criminal justice issues.

This is particularly humiliating for Becerra given that he had told the Los Angeles Times that he intends to protect California’s “progressive” policies on immigration, Obamacare, energy, and criminal justice. Becerra has already challenged the federal government, saying that “If you want to take on a forward-leaning state that is prepared to defend its rights and interests, then come at us.”

Looks like he is not going to get that chance, however, even if he is confirmed as the attorney general. Those cases will instead be handled by Holder and an entire team of lawyers at Holder’s private law firm, Covington & Burling, a premier Washington, D.C. law firm not exactly known for its low billing rates.

There is little doubt that California taxpayers, who are already living in a state with high taxes and huge budget problems, are going to get soaked for a lot of legal costs in addition to the price they already pay for the Office of the State Attorney General, which has 4,500 lawyers, investigators, police officers, and other staff. Apparently, however, the California legislature doubts their ability to fulfil their duties of defending the state’s interests.

All of this illustrates that the California legislature has made a poor – but no doubt a very expensive – choice that will hurt the state.

But it is hardly surprising, I suppose, that the state would hire a former attorney general whose Justice Department did everything it could to defend the mountain of new, out-of-control regulations issued by the Obama administration in order to try to keep those economically-costly regulations in place. Nor is it shocking that an attorney general who did everything he could to avoid enforcing federal immigration law during the Obama administration will now try to help California obstruct the enforcement of federal immigration law during the Trump administration.

Holder’s goals seem to have stayed the same; it’s just the playing field that has changed.

Hans von Spakovsky is an authority on a wide range of issues—including civil rights, civil justice, the First Amendment, immigration, the rule of law and government reform—as a senior legal fellow in The Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies and manager of the think tank’s Election Law Reform Initiative.

Obama's Disastrous Legacy

Obama is proud of himself. He and his devoted followers believe he has left America in better shape than when he found it.

Wrong.

To avoid the accusation of bias and (fake) "fake news," let's use the mainstream news media and government websites, in almost every case, to prove that Obama and his core followers are misjudging their own country and the world.

Foreign Affairs

1. His Benghazi policy was deadly for four Americans.

These deaths happened in September 2012, before his re-election, so the DNC had to adopt a false narrative about a video because terrorist groups were supposedly in retreat.

We should have kept a military base there for as long as we have in Germany, Japan, and Korea. But Obama believes the standard leftist lie that America around the globe causes problems, not solves them.

In 2016, the overall premium increase across the fifty states is 25%. In many states, the rise is much higher. It means that businesses won't hire full time, and they reduce the number of hours their current employees can work.

It hasn't broken through 3% – a historic record. "On Friday, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) reported that 2015 U.S. real GDP (RGDP) growth was 2.38%. No matter what revisions are subsequently made, 2015 will have been the tenth year in a row that RGDP growth came in at under 3.0%. The longest previous such run in U.S. economic history was only four years, and the last time that this happened was during the Great Depression (1930 - 1933)."

“Mexican drug cartels are the “other” terrorist threat to
America. Militant Islamists have the goal of destroying the United States.Mexican drug
cartels are now accomplishing that mission – from within, every day, in
virtually every community across this country.”

The Obama reviews are coming in. It's hard to see how anyone can defend President Obama's two terms, as Justin Haskins wrote:

Shortly after being sworn into office in January 2009, President Obama, along with Democrats in Congress, spent trillions of dollars on government bailouts, stimulus packages, and various social welfare programs -- all passed with the promise they would reverse one of the most significant economic crashes the country has experienced.

After nearly eight years in office, though, Obama has failed to deliver on many of his campaign promises and has left America worse-off than it was when he entered the White House.

Feds Seize Nearly $7M in Meth at Texas Border

Federal authorities seized nearly $7 million in crystal methamphetamine at two international border bridges in south Texas in one week.

Officers with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) assigned to the World Trade Center International Bridge in Laredo, Texas, observed a 2004 Chevrolet Suburban crossing from Mexico. The driver was instructed to pull up to a secondary inspection station to be checked further, according to information obtained in an email on Wednesday Breitbart Texas from CBP officials. A K-9 officer alerted to the possible presence of drugs in the vehicle. A non-intrusive inspection of the vehicle revealed anomalies in the shipment of fiberglass pottery being transported by the driver.

Agents carried out a physical inspection of the shipment and discovered 45 fiberglass pots were packed with the illicit drug. The crystal meth was weighed by CBP officers and determined to be more than 200 pounds. CBP officials estimate the value of the shipment at $4,030,008. The drugs and the Suburban were seized by the officers. The suspect, a U.S. citizen from Laredo, was turned over to Homeland Security Investigations for possible drug smuggling charges. The incident took place on December 22, 2016.

“I commend our CBP officers for their hard work and attention to detail,” acting Laredo Port of Entry Port Director Francisco Garcia said in a written statement. “CBP has numerous layers of enforcement and our officers will go above and beyond to keep these illicit drugs from entering our country and affecting our community.”

The World Trade Center International Bridge is the location where then-presidential candidate Donald Trump visited in July 2015 where he was briefed on border security by Border Patrol agents from the National Border Patrol Council and CBP officials, Breitbart Texas reported.

Two days before this incident, CBP officers working the Hidalgo-Reynosa International Bridge in the Rio Grande Valley observed a grey 2006 Chevrolet Tahoe crossing from Mexico. She approached the border crossing via the Secure Electronic Network for Travelers Rapid Inspection (SENTRI) lane but failed to stop at the primary inspection station. Officers quickly stopped the woman, a 26-year-old U.S. citizen from Kansas City, Missouri, and escorted her to the inspection station.

Officers used a non-intrusive imaging system to inspect the vehicle after K-9 officers alerted to the possible presence of drugs. A physical inspection revealed 24 packages of what would later test positive for methamphetamine. The drugs were concealed inside the vehicle. The drugs, weighing 129.19 pounds, were valued by officials at an estimated $2,583,791.

Officers arrested the woman and seized the drugs and vehicle. They were turned over to Homeland Security Investigations for further investigation.

“Our officers are always vigilant and prepared to respond to these type of situations, they are our nation’s front line,” Port Director Efrain Solis Jr., Hidalgo/Phar/Anzalduas Port of Entry, said in a written statement. “This interception prevented a significant quantity of hard narcotics from entering our country and negatively impacting our nation.”

Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior political news contributor for Breitbart Texas. He is a founding member of the Breitbart Texas team. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX.